Proposals and invoices
When to use this
Use this page when you need the big-picture difference between the proposal and invoice sides of an event.
Proposals
The proposal is the customer-facing document for the job. It packages the arrangements, vision, pricing, and terms so the client can review, sign and accept, decline, or ask for changes.
Important proposal behaviors:
- proposals begin in draft and are only visible to your team
- sending locks the proposal, so the client always sees exactly what you approved
- you can follow progress as the client views and responds
- changes after sending become a new version, and the older version is kept as superseded history
- an accepted proposal books the event and becomes the basis for invoicing
Invoices
Invoices are billing records. They track formal payment expectations and the payments that arrive against those expectations.
Important invoice behaviors:
- invoices are created from the event’s Finances view, usually against the accepted proposal or your payment schedule
- draft is the editable stage: you change a draft in place, on the invoice itself; a sent, paid or void invoice shows the copy your client has
- on a phone, each line of a draft invoice is a card. Tap a card, or its title, to open its editor, then tap Done. Cancel drops your changes. The ⋮ menu on a card has Edit, Move up, Move down and Delete. Add item and Add section sit after the last card
- a sent invoice has its own payment page, where the client can pay by card or bank transfer; see Client payments
- a sent invoice shows as Awaiting payment, then Partially paid and Paid as money arrives, or Overdue once the due date passes while money is still owed, partly paid or not
- card payments record themselves; bank transfers and cash are recorded by you
- a sent invoice that is genuinely wrong should be voided and re-issued, not edited
The tax column on each line reads back what was saved, not what would apply today: a line with its own rate shows that rate, a taxable line without one shows the invoice’s default rate, and a line with no rate to apply shows No tax on a draft and a dash on a sent invoice, as on the PDF.
The name of your tax follows your location: Sales tax in the US and Canada, GST in Australia and New Zealand, and VAT everywhere else. It appears beside your tax number and your client’s tax number on the invoice. An invoice in the formal layout is titled TAX INVOICE only when your studio is registered for the tax in Business → Tax & pricing; otherwise it reads INVOICE. An invoice sent before this change keeps the title and dates it was sent with.
Why BloomBoard keeps them separate
A proposal answers “Will the client approve this work?” An invoice answers “What is now owed and what has been paid?” Keeping both tied to the same event lets your team preserve commercial history without mixing approval and payment logic.
Treat accepted proposals and sent invoices as formal history. If the commercial situation changes, use a new version or a new billing action rather than trying to rewrite the past document in place.